As I write this, fire is eating its way across the north of Alberta, three provinces to my west. More than 80,000 people have already been evacuated from Fort McMurray and surrounding areas, but the latest news is that, so far, thankfully, no one has been seriously injured or lost their life to this tragedy.
Although I was born in Ontario and didn't move to southern Alberta until I was 15, I consider that province my home. It's where I am most at peace, where I feel most connected to the earth and to the sky above. Those are easy things to feel in a place where both can appear to reach from the edge of your shadow onward to infinity.
The maybe counterintuitive thing about coming from such a vast and wide-open place is that you develop a deep sense of your connectedness to others. Community here, for 10,000 years or more, has been about reliance, survival, and, of course, celebration--of the fact that we are here at all, let alone in this awe-inspiring place together.
I have never been to Fort Mac. I don't think I know any of the evacuees. But I know about community. I know theirs, like all of ours, was never made of just buildings and infrastructure. As we see the stories emerge of people bringing jerrycans of gas to stranded motorists fleeing along Highway 63, of folks taking in strangers and their rescued animals alike, of babies being born, of donations pouring in, of towns and cities and provinces and an entire country opening its arms, they will at least know what they have left. Themselves. Each other. And us.
Speaking of which, if you haven't done so yet, please donate to the Canadian Red Cross, which is coordinating relief efforts for those many who had to flee so quickly and with so little: www.redcross.ca
Although I was born in Ontario and didn't move to southern Alberta until I was 15, I consider that province my home. It's where I am most at peace, where I feel most connected to the earth and to the sky above. Those are easy things to feel in a place where both can appear to reach from the edge of your shadow onward to infinity.
The maybe counterintuitive thing about coming from such a vast and wide-open place is that you develop a deep sense of your connectedness to others. Community here, for 10,000 years or more, has been about reliance, survival, and, of course, celebration--of the fact that we are here at all, let alone in this awe-inspiring place together.
I have never been to Fort Mac. I don't think I know any of the evacuees. But I know about community. I know theirs, like all of ours, was never made of just buildings and infrastructure. As we see the stories emerge of people bringing jerrycans of gas to stranded motorists fleeing along Highway 63, of folks taking in strangers and their rescued animals alike, of babies being born, of donations pouring in, of towns and cities and provinces and an entire country opening its arms, they will at least know what they have left. Themselves. Each other. And us.
Speaking of which, if you haven't done so yet, please donate to the Canadian Red Cross, which is coordinating relief efforts for those many who had to flee so quickly and with so little: www.redcross.ca
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